BWF said their would be group stage first. For singles, their would be 16 groups. Yet number of players would be only 38 or 40. Therefore there would be only 2 players for most of the groups.is this true? How come you could call this a "group" instead of knock-off system if you only got 2 players for most of the groups?
The arrangements for the Olympics this year for Singles are messy. If BWF wants players to play more than 1 match (which is the original intention), then, they should EXPAND the number of players from 38/40 to 48! That will definitely ensure 3 players per group and 2 matches played for each player. Indeed, there might be only groups with 2 players as it is now.
According to the BWF website, the draws will be conducted such that the top 16 seeds will be occupying the top place in each group (Steps 1-4) and the allocation of other non-seeded players will be according to these steps: Step 5 - 12 players to be allocated to groups with non top-4 seeds (cumulative #players - 28) Step 6: 10 players to be allocated to groups consisting of non top-4 seeds (cumulative #players - 38) Step 7: 4 players to be allocated to groups consisting of seeds 3/4 to 5/8 (cumulative #players - 42) Step 8: 4 players to be allocated to groups consisting of top 4 seeds (cumulative #players - 46) Step 9: 2 players to be allocated to groups consisting of top 2 seeds Step 10: Additional players (if any) to be allocated to groups consisting of seeds 9/16. As of 3 May 2012, I believe the number of qualified players for MS & WS are 38 and 46 respectively. So, according to calculation, we shall see: MS - the top 4-seeds will earn byes to R16 (1 player only in 4 groups), while 2 groups consisting of seeds 5-8 will have 2 players, and the other 10 groups (2 seeds 5-8 and the remaining seeds 9-16) will have 3 players in each group. WS -the top 2-seeds will play 1 time (2 players only in 2 groups), while the remaining seeds will have 3 players each.
The IOC (not BWF) has assigned a fixed number of participants. If you want 48 singles players then that means 4/5 less doubles pairs ... 3 players per group is useless as well imo, should be at least 4 to be meaningful ... 8 groups would be logical but extremely unusual in OG play
A draw of 32 should be nice. 8 players per group in 4 groups and each player plays 3 times. The top 2 will advance to the knock-out stage (QF). Easier to organize and less messy compared to the current system.
The different is for you suggestion one has to play 3 matches to get into the last 16 compare with NONE for current system for the top 4 in MS
What he meant is that only 2 people should qualify for Olympic. Just kidding... Maybe because he is seeded 2
